4:2 [If] we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?
but a who can withhold himself from speaking?
(a) Seeing your impatience.
4:3 Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou b hast
strengthened the weak hands.
(b) You have comforted others in their afflictions but you
cannot now comfort yourself.
4:6 [Is] not [this] thy c fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and
the uprightness of thy ways?
(c) He concludes that Job was a hypocrite and had no true
fear or trust in God.
4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who [ever] perished, being d
innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
(d) He concludes that Job was reproved seeing that God
handles him so extremely, which is the argument that the
carnal men make against the children of God.
4:8 Even as I have seen, they that e plow iniquity, and sow
wickedness, reap the same.
(e) They who do evil cannot but receive evil.
4:9 By the f blast of God they perish, and by the breath of
his nostrils are they consumed.
(f) He shows that God needs no great preparation to destroy
his enemies: for he can do it with the blast of his
mouth.
4:10 The roaring of the g lion, and the voice of the fierce
lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
(g) Though men according to their office do not punish
tyrants (whom for their cruelty he compares to lions,
and their children to their whelps) yet God is able and
his justice will punish them.
4:12 Now a thing was h secretly brought to me, and mine ear
received a little thereof.
(h) A thing I did not know before was declared to me by
vision, that is that whoever thinks himself just will
be found a sinner when he comes before God.
4:14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones
i to shake.
(i) In these visions which God shows to his creatures,
there is always a certain fear joined, that the
authority of it might be had in greater reverence.
4:16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof:
an image [was] before mine eyes, [there was] k silence,
and I heard a voice, [saying],
(k) When all things were quiet or when the fear was
relieved as God appeared to Elijah, (1Ki 19:12).
4:17 Shall mortal man be more l just than God? shall a man be
more pure than his maker?
(l) He proves that if God punished the innocent, the
creature would be more just than the creator, which was
blasphemy.
4:18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his m angels
he charged with folly:
(m) If God finds imperfection in his angels when they are
not maintained by his power, how much more shall he lay
folly to man's charge when he would justify himself
against God?
4:19 How much less [in] them that dwell in houses of n clay,
whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed
before the moth?
(n) That is, in this mortal body, subject to corruption, as
in (2Co 5:1).
4:20 They are destroyed from o morning to evening: they perish
for ever p without any regarding [it].
(o) They see death continually before their eyes and daily
approaching them.
(p) No man for all this considers it.
4:21 Doth not their excellency [which is] in them go away? they
die, even without q wisdom.
(q) That is, before any of them were so wise, as to think
of death.
